Female Foundry Week 40: Global VC investment pullback. Building highly-technical products. How to extend your runway. Composability in Web3. Why fast unicorns frequently fade.
Welcome to The Week 40, 2022 Edition of the Female Foundry weekly newsletter!
Female Foundry - where female investors and founders meet.
In The News
A cyber threat modeling platform IriusRisk, co-founded by Cristina Bentue and based in Cuarte, Spain, raises a $29 million Series B funding round, led by cyber and deep-tech investor Paladin Capital Group. Over the ocean, Orca, a decentralised exchange on the Solana blockchain, co-founded by Ori Kwan, bags $18 million for a Series A round led by Polychain.
Investment giant Coatue makes a move to establish its anticipated foothold into Europe’s startup scene with a tapped veteran VC Sarah Cannon to lead the charge.
Passion Capital co-founder Eileen Burbidge announces she will lead a UK-based femtech startup Fertifa while continuing to venture invest in other startups.
Spotlight
Global VC investment pullback.
The third quarter of 2022 has seen a significant pullback in investment activity across all venture classes, as the economic activity has slowed down, driven by uncertain market conditions. Venture funding for the Q3 of 2022 totaled $81 billion - down by $90 billion, that is 53%, year over year, and by $40 billion, 33%, quarter over quarter, according to the Crunchbase News analysis. This is a huge drop, but have we hit rock bottom yet? In her article, Gené Teare analyses the current trend, and its implications and shares her prognosis. Read full story ➯
Why composability is the heart of Web3.
In the context of Web3, composability is the ability of blockchain applications, such as decentralised exchanges, DEXs, decentralised applications, dApps, and decentralised autonomous organisations, DAOs, to communicate and work with each other. This benefit sits at the heart of Web3 because by their very nature, blockchains are open-source, and so are many of the applications on top of them. Joey Bertschler explains how composability accelerates Web3 development and suggests its potential downsides. Read analysis ➯
Fundraising
Practical ways to extend your runway right now.
With the third major tech downturn in the Internet era looming, funding options for startups have been tightening. Gone are the days of “grow at all costs.” The instability of the market for the next months will require a different skillset from founders. Today’s environment requires subtle and precise control and clean business management. When navigated well, the months ahead will separate winners from losers. How do you come on top? What should you do now? How to prepare for the unexpected? Heřman Kopkáně shares the key insights. Read full story ➯
Building highly-technical products (and not getting overwhelmed).
The process of building a highly-technical enterprise infrastructure product is very different from that of a simple API-driven solution. Without a clear product development strategy, the process can be daunting. How do you gain conviction and create a resilient strategy for building, scaling, and managing data-intensive products? How do you efficiently gather insights and use data to inform your development strategy? Nate Stewart, shares a tested playbook, including failure modes for product managers to keep an eye out for. Read full story ➯
Analysis
Why do fast unicorns frequently fade.
As of today, there are 1,189 unicorns worldwide. What may seem like a high number, joining this elite startup club, is not an easy ask. In fact, a business has only a 0.00006% chance of becoming a unicorn and on average, it takes 8 years for a nascent (and extremely lucky) startup to become a unicorn. There are however startups that reach this status earlier. Is a quick road to megastardom a blessing or a curse? Joanna Glasner argues that the vast majority of startups that quickly rise to unicorn status commonly are not able to sustain their high valuations and explains why. Read analysis ➯
From the Community
Two female-founded VC firms raise new funds this week!
Sista, a Paris-based NGO, co-founded by Tatiana Jama, has announced a first close, €30m, of its target €100m fund. Sista will write cheques of €250k-€3m into about 30 pre-revenue startups. Its investment focus is broad and it includes fintech, healthtech, SaaS, and consumer.
Ada Ventures, a London-based VC fund co-founded by Francesca (Check) Warner, announced the launch of Ada Ventures Fund II with the first close of £36m. Ada plans to make about 30 pre-seed investments and about 10 seed investments over the next four years into UK startups. Ada’s focus is to fund companies dealing with pressing issues of our time: climate, healthcare and aging, and economic empowerment.
Hiring
Check Female Foundry Job Board and join female-founded startups.
Hormona ➯ Product Manager | Baobab ➯ Sales (German Speaker) Intern | Daye ➯ Project Manager
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That’s all for this week!
Have a great weekend 👋
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Agata
Written by Agata Nowicka, a serial entrepreneur and an investor based in London.
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